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Broad-tailed Hummingbird

May 27th, 2012 by

I was going to write about birds from Costa Rica but I took a quick trip to Red Butte Garden today and I have fantastic pictures of a Broad-tailed Hummingbird.  Here’s the male from very far away.

 

 

They look a lot like the Anna’s Hummingbird because of the ruby throat, but the Broad-tailed Hummingbird has a green crown.  They also sound different when they’re flying.  Anna’s Hummingbirds have a sound like no other.  Here’s the female.

 

Female hummingbirds all look extremely similar.  One distinguishing feature of the female Broad-tailed Hummingbird is that the tail has white splotches.

 

 

The flowers that she’s drinking from are called Red Valerian.  The description mentioned that the flowers bloom all summer long so maybe I should get some from the yard.  It would be nice to have hummingbirds visit.

 

 







          										
 

				


				
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Top 100 Bird Blog

					
            
            May 26th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
Hey guys, thanks to you reading my website I’ve made it into the top 100 of bird blogs according to Nature Blog Network!


 




 


So thanks!  Someday I hope to be in the top 20.  I occasionally tell people at work that I’m going to become a famous blogger like Dooce and retire from the income generated from ad revenue.  Of course I could never give up being a patent lawyer – I’m actually taking a break from working on a Saturday to type this.  But it’s a funny idea for a patent lawyer to retire and become a bird blogger.  A girl can dream.


 

          										
 

				


				
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American Robin

					
            
            May 26th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
We have robins in Utah year round but they start to establish a presence starting in March.


 






The robins are especially vocal at night and I can hear them when I bike home from work.  They made little chips and around dusk they break into song.  It’s very idyllic.


Yes?  Can I help you?




 


I also see them in my yard frequently, especially after I mess around in the garden because they like to pick through the soil and find the unearthed grubs.


 




 


These images were all taken with my new lens.  I’m not trying to brag when I saw that the first shot is perfect, because I’m judging the abilities of the lens.  But I love the coloring and the clarity.  If you enlarge the picture you can even see tiny little feathers under his beak.  Also, his legs remind me of those portraits they have kids do in school where they place your arms in an unnatural pose.  Like when they make you prop up your chin with your fist and look contemplative.  The robin’s right leg looks purposefully positioned.

          										
 

				


				
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Fun

					
            
            May 23rd, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
As I mentioned, on Friday I was ridiculously sick.  This was good news for the cockatiels, though, because it meant they got to spend a whole working day outside their cage.


 






The birds very quickly get used to one of us being in the room with them.  When Jon or I leave, all of a sudden they get indignant because we made a deal and everyone was supposed to stay together forever.


 




 


Conner got so mad at me today.  I got home from work and let them out of their cages.  Jon came home and told me that the burger truck was nearby so I put Conner back in the cage.  When Conner is mad at you he lifts his wings up very high to show you how tough he is.  When I let him out of the cage the second time he was so mad he lifted up his wings and flew from my hands.


Trevor, illustrating the angry wings






 

          										
 

				


				
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New Lens

					
            
            May 20th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
I did it!  I bought the Nikon 500mm lens.  I will not be buying anything else for a very long time.  So as the first example of why it’s better to buy this lens over others, I’ve taken pictures of sparrows at my feeder from the same distance with the same camera body (Nikon d300s) and the three different lenses.


First, the Sigma 150-500mm lens:




Okay, but not that great, right?  This is especially true if you enlarge the picture.  The edges are soft.  Now checkout the Nikon 400mm f/2.8 lens pictures.






Much better.  And when you enlarge this picture you see greater detail.  You discover that birds have lots of fine whiskers along their faces.  Now here’s the Nikon 500mm lens:




Have you ever seen a nicer looking female House Sparrow?  I didn’t realize how amazing the patterns are on the male House Sparrow until today:




This image nicely illustrates a new word that I learned when researching these images: bokeh.  Bokeh is the “quality of out-of-focus or ‘blurry’ parts of the image rendered by a camera lens.”  The bokeh produced by the 500mm lens is gorgeous.  The Sigma didn’t create pretty patterns, it was just a softened image.


I also got to see this awesome fight between two sparrows:








I leave you with this adorable picture of a baby sparrow that was rapidly flapping its wings, following its mother.



          										
 

				


				
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Foster’s Tern

					
            
            May 19th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
You guys, I have been so sick since yesterday.  I threw up.  I haven’t thrown up since we lived in California and that was the result of a wild night of having three glasses of wine.  The last time I threw up due to sickness was in law school and that was due to the grossness of canned gulab jumum.  Do not have sickly sweet Indian candy from a can.  I feel better today, but I’m still living off of liquids so we’ll see what happens when I attempt brunch tomorrow.


 


So now you know why I didn’t post yesterday.  I will make up for it now by showing you gorgeous pictures of a Foster’s Tern taken with the 400mm lens.


 




 


Farmington Bay has one residential Foster’s Tern that I see every year.  This time I saw three different terns.  There were two that were particularly funny because it looked like one was yelling at the other.


 


I’ve been opening my heart to you and you never listen.




All I ask is that you tell me what you’re thinking sometimes.




Fine, if you’re going to stay silent, maybe we’re not right together.  Maybe we should take a break.




If you leave now, don’t bother coming back.




I think it was some sort of mating song, but it sure looked like the one bird was yelling at the other.  Terns are always very noisy, though.  When the terns hunt for foot they make a similar whiny noise.


 

          										
 

				


				
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D.C. Area

					
            
            May 15th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
Jon and I have returned from a trip to the D.C. area.  We had a really busy trip full of tourist attractions and fantastic food.  I feel like I’m really becoming in expert in vegan/vegetarian food across the country.  On Saturday we toured the Capital, the National Portrait Gallery and had amazing Mexican food at Oyamel and India food at Rasika that was so good it’s going to be hard to go back to eating merely acceptable Mexican food in SLC.  On Sunday we visited my favorite museum in D.C.: the Corcoran, saw the White House, toured Old Town in Alexandria, VA and had vegetarian food at One World Cafe and Afghani Restaurant.  On Monday we had vegan soul food at Land of Kush and on Tuesday we went back to the One World Cafe (our hotel was across the street) and visited the Museum of Industry in Baltimore, MD.  Here’s some highlights:


The Capitol




Land of Kush




Alexandria




inside of the National Cathedral




White House




absolutely brilliant display at the Corcoran where the artist, Freehand Profit, created a gas mask from a Coach purse.




Mexican restaurant




Utah is a nice place with affordable housing, but I really miss having access to museums and a greater diversity of food.

          										
 

				


				
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California Quail Pictures Taken with the 400mm f/2.8

					
            
            May 12th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
Most of the images that I took with the 400mm f/2.8 lens weren’t that impressive but I was really happy with the quail shots.  If you want to find quails, Red Butte Garden is full of them.  I first found some in the same section where I posted about the Spotted Towhee a few weeks ago.


 




 


The female was nearby but I didn’t get a good shot of her.  Jon found another pair of quails in a different location.  The female was still elusive but I got a decent shot of her.






I have a few good shots of the male too, although the grass always gets in the way to some extent.




 


But then he went onto the gravel and gave me an unobstructed view.




 


And then the coolest thing happened.  The wind hit the quail just right until it looked like he was doing a blowfish impression.




 


The 400mm lens is actually a little heavier than the 500mm lens.  Some people prefer it, though, because it’s supposed to capture sharper images.  That was not my experience, though, but there are many other factors I wasn’t testing.  For example, maybe the 500mm was newer.  The 400mm that I rented looked rough and had a lot of paint chipped off of it.  Also, the lens has a lot of settings that I didn’t play with because I only used the 500mm for an afternoon.  But I used those features in the 400mm, which is why the quail looks a lot better than the coot.  I still think I’m going to buy the 500mm.

          										
 

				


				
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Cockatiels

					
            
            May 10th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
Birds are very intuitive and they dislike change.


 




 


A few weeks ago Jon and I went to Las Vegas for an attorney event.  When I was packing, Conner got very upset.  He could tell that we were about to leave because all the clothing was going into a suitcase.  He wouldn’t let me leave the room and he got on top of Trevor’s boing.  Everyone knows that the boing belongs to Trevor and no one else can touch it.




 


Poor Conner.  I’m sure he wishes that we could all live in the same room and never leave.

          										
 

				


				
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Takashi Finches

					
            
            May 8th, 2012 by   
          
				


				

					
There is a fantastic sushi restaurant downtown called Takashi that I visited last Friday.  As soon as we walked up to the building I could hear the baby House Finches.  This picture is so funny because someone put up a piece of cardboard with nails in it to discourage the birds from nesting.  So they pushed it aside and built a nest to the left of it.


 




 


Here’s a grainy picture of the babies being fed because I took this with my 15-55mm lens.  Still cute, though.




 


And here’s a picture of an amazing dish called the Downtown Roll.  My diet encourages reducing carbohydrates so this roll is great because it involves no rice and it’s wrapped in cucumber, which gives it a delicious fresh flavor.  The inside is tuna, crab, roe and avocado with eel sauce and toasted sesame seeds on top.  If you visit Salt Lake City you should try Takashi.  Their specialty rolls are fantastic.



          										
 

				


				
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